


In the Making

by Engineer104



Series: Watered Plants and Other Stories [4]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Future Fic, POV Outsider, Post-Canon, Prompt Fill, Sort of? - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-26 10:58:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13234251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Engineer104/pseuds/Engineer104
Summary: intimacy (noun):  close familiarity or friendship; closenessor: five outsider views on the peculiar relationship between Lance and Pidge......and one on the inside





	In the Making

**Author's Note:**

> _summaries_
> 
>  
> 
> Anyway this is for a prompt posed (or not) to me on tumblr, but it got so long that rather than adding it to my other prompt fill collection i'm posting it separately. In any case, enjoy!!

**(5)**

After another night of fitful sleep at least blessedly free of nightmares, Shiro woke early to an odd chill that crept into his body and sat in his bones. In the dim glow of his bedroom’s night light, he could see his exhalations misting out above his face. He shivered, even the blankets insufficient to keep him warm.

 _What happened?_ he wondered. He rolled out of bed, planting his bare feet on the carpet right before reconsidering and reaching underneath for the Lion slippers he so infrequently used. After slipping those on, he crossed his arms, rubbing them for warmth, and stood to retrieve the robe from the hook on the door.

Shiro scarcely stepped outside his room when he was hit by a blast of even cooler air, the hallway at a lower temperature, as if someone had changed the local atmospheric settings to _frigid_. After glancing around, he walked towards where he knew the control – the thermostat in a sense – to be, the better to find out why it was so cold.

At least until he stepped on a slick patch of floor and his foot slipped out from under him.

Shiro gasped in shock as he slipped and fell, landing hard on his back, his breath escaping him in a white puff of mist. “What the quiznak?” he swore, slowly sitting up and rubbing his chilled backside.

“Oh, quiznak!” a voice he hadn’t expected out and about this early in the Castle’s day cycle exclaimed. “Shiro, are you all right?”

Shiro watched as Lance slid into view, bundled up in several layers including a hat and a scarf, throwing up fine white powder with every motion of his foot. He wore the boots from his Paladin armor, blades attached to them like…ice skates.

“What the quiznak?” Shiro repeated, stunned at the sight, though he supposed _ice_ explained why his backside was growing numb.

“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” Lance told him, taking a knee next to him and grabbing his arm. “Pidge!” he called with a backwards glance. “I thought you’d set an alarm to warn everyone!”

Pidge – the _last_ person that should be awake this early at all – emerged into view from around a corner, moving a little less smoothly than Lance had but still looking quite happy about ice skating in the hallway. But then her eyes landed on Shiro and widened. “Oh, quiznak.”

Shiro scowled. “‘Quiznak’ is right,” he said. “What were you thinking?”

Pidge skidded to a stop a meter away from him and Lance, activating the display on her armor cuff – which she wore over several layers of sweaters – and scanning what looked like a calendar. “I _did_ set an alarm!” she told Lance. “I set it for…a varga from now.” Her eyes drifted to Shiro and she said, “I think we forgot what sort of schedule you keep, Shiro.”

“Right,” he said as patiently as he could manage. “Just help me up, Lance.”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” Lance said quickly, already eager to please. He took hold of both of his arms and heaved, enough that Shiro could plant his feet on the iced over floor, so cold he could feel his feet going numb even nestled in his slippers.

“So what exactly possessed you to freeze an entire hallway so you could _ice skate_?” Shiro demanded once he was leaning against the wall.

Lance and Pidge stood in front of him, with enough shame to look chagrined. “Well, Pidge said she missed ice skating,” Lance explained.

“Lance said he’d never been.” She shot him a glare, and Shiro guessed she envied how quickly he took to an activity he’d never attempted. “So I…flooded the hallway and lowered the temperature to below freezing.” She crossed her arms and returned her gaze to Shiro, eyes peeking out from over a scarf that covered her face.

“We were going to invite everyone else,” Lance promised, holding his hands up defensively. “It’s just that Pidge and I were the only ones awake.”

Shiro raised an eyebrow at them, gaze drifting from one to the other. “Did you even go to sleep last night?”

Pidge tugged her scarf a little higher up, and Lance ducked his head while they both admitted, “No.”

Shiro knew Pidge was susceptible to insomnia, that sometimes her mind spoke too loudly and wouldn’t allow her much rest – and oh, could he _relate_ – but he’d never considered that Lance could be victim to the same problem, unless…

He stared between the two of them. “What were you doing _before_ you got this insane idea?”

To his amazement, Pidge flushed red, but Lance shrugged and said, “We were just talking and stargazing, at least when I got her away from her computers.”

“Right,” Shiro said. He smiled at them, hoping it looked reassuring, because even though he could sense something distinctly _odd_ about this, he decided it was better to believe them and not to press for more details that wouldn’t be forthcoming. “I just hope you know that there’s no way in hell Coran’s going to agree to cleaning up your mess this time.”

“Yeah, we’ll clean it up,” Lance said, grinning and waving a dismissive hand while Pidge nodded in agreement. “I know where the mops are.”

“Good,” said Shiro. He turned to head back to his room, to bundle himself up in a few layers too, with his hand along the wall to keep himself from slipping again, but an inquiry from behind made him pause.

“Do you want to…join us, Shiro?” Pidge asked.

Shiro smiled and glanced at them from over his shoulder, saw how close they stood whether they were aware of it or not. “Maybe later when everyone else is awake,” he said. “I don’t fancy being the third wheel.”

* * *

**(4)**

Coran sat at his terminal in the Castle’s bridge, spending another sleepless night waiting for an alarm, only this time it was one he looked forward to rather than dreaded. He idly stroked his mustache and tapped his foot while he waited, raising an inquiring eyebrow at Platt, who perched on top of his terminal, ready to wake Allura as soon as the alarm came.

“Not long now, I expect,” he reassured the mouse.

Platt swiped a tiny paw over its ear, scratching, but kept its expectant eyes on Coran.

Coran sighed, scanning through records and data that Pidge sent him… _before_ her solo mission went wrong. At least Sam Holt now slept safely in a bedroom aboard the Castle, so Pidge herself wouldn’t consider the mission a failure, though Coran worried the delay she suffered while stealing records from the Galra prison could still cost her.

The healing pods were excellent, thorough, and efficient, marvels of technology even now, over ten thousand years after their invention, but they couldn’t perform miracles.

A beep from his terminal jerked Coran from his worried thoughts, and he stood up and immediately marched towards the bridge’s exit and for the med bay, Platt scurrying in a poor attempt to keep pace with his strides. The door to the med bay slid open, but the sight of a shadowy figure waiting in front of the one occupied healing pod brought him up short.

Platt climbed his leg, tiny claws digging into the fabric of his trousers as it clawed itself up to Coran’s shoulder. It chirped questioningly into his ear, but he ignored it in favor of watching, caution and intuition bidding him stay out of the way for the nonce.

The pod door dissolved, white vapor puffing out in a cloud that concealed the small figure slumbering within, at least until she woke and stumbled out, falling into the arms of the person standing in front of her.

“My dad,” Pidge said, voice faint as she clutched Lance’s arms. “Where’s my dad?”

“He’s fine, thanks to you,” Lance reassured her quickly, wrapping an arm around her and propping her up before she could walk off on her own, diminished strength. “He’s sleeping off his…captivity though; he wanted to be here but he agreed to sleep first.”

“Good,” Pidge said in a firmer tone. She stood upright now, though Lance looked like he still supported most of her weight. “I’m glad; thank you, Lance.”

“For what?” he asked her with a sideways glance.

She reached up, her thumb briefly touching his chin before her hand came down to rest in the crook of his elbow. “For…being here instead.”

Coran raised an eyebrow at Platt, who pointedly batted its mousy eyelashes at him. “What?” he mouthed at him.

Platt scratched its head, then pointed back towards Pidge and Lance, who were already heading towards the med bay doors, Pidge leaning heavily against Lance so that they moved in an odd, lopsided walk.

“Oh, now hold on!” Coran said quickly, before they could spot him.

Pidge jumped, startled, but Lance chuckled, a hand moving up and down her side as if to calm. “Coran,” said Pidge. “You…how long have you been there?”

“Not too long,” Coran said, waving a dismissive hand, “but before you go to sleep or eat or whatever it is you want to do first, I need to check you over, make sure you didn’t suffer any permanent damage.” He went to a panel in the wall then and called up a hovering platform from the center of the room.

Meanwhile Lance guided Pidge back towards it, the two of them having a hushed conversation just too soft for Coran to distinguish any words. But he gave them their privacy for the moment – he suspected they spoke about Pidge’s father and his recuperation – in favor of grabbing a biometric scanner from a cabinet.

Platt, on the other hand, was as curious – or _nosy_ – as any of the other mice; it climbed back down Coran, scurrying towards the platform. He frowned at the mouse, guessing that Allura herself would likely appear within a few doboshes, roused from sleep by whatever information Platt fed her through their telepathic bond.

Coran returned to Pidge, her eyes heavy with sleep, though she sat upright, back straight and without Lance’s assistance. “You can go to bed, if you like,” Coran told him while he booted up the scanner.

Lance glanced at Pidge, and at some silent signal that passed between them, he said, “No, I think I’ll stay for now.”

“Suit yourself,” Coran said. He held the scanner up to Pidge, taking her measurements from head to toe. At a flash of red from the display, he ended the scan and examined the input, smiling in relief. “Everything looks to be in order.”

“I didn’t…” Pidge rested a hand on the back of her head, where she suffered the worst and potentially most debilitating injury. “I can see normally? And my brain functions and—”

Coran nodded. “You might want to take it easy for a few quintants, just in case, but you should be all right.”

Pidge broke out into a relieved smile. “Oh, good.” She rubbed her face. “Quiznak, I didn’t even know how worried I was about it until now.” She reached to the side and wrapped her arms around Lance’s waist.

He seemed taken aback by the gesture, eyes widening in surprise, but he was quick to return the embrace too. “Hey, even if it _was_ permanent,” Lance told her, a hand rubbing her back, “I’d be happy to support you and be your eyes.”

Pidge snorted, the sound slightly muffled by his shirt. “Yeah, you’d get tired of it after a few days,” she said. “I’d work you more than you’d expect.”

“Yeah, I know you’re not shy if you want something.”

The sound of footsteps behind Coran made them all look around to see Allura, dressed in her night gown, enter the med bay, beaming despite the obvious exhaustion in her eyes, with three other mice hot on her heels. “Oh, Pidge!” she exclaimed, marching towards them. “I’m so happy to see you awake!” She swept Pidge into a hug, which shocked a squeak from her, and even lifted her up in her relief and enthusiasm. “Your father will be too, I’m sure!”

Coran examined Allura thoughtfully, sure he wasn’t imagining the shine in her eyes and on her facial markings.

“I, uh, thank you, Allura,” Pidge said, patting her back despite the bewilderment in her voice. “I’m fine, thanks to everyone.”

“Good, good,” Allura said, finally setting her down. She continued to smile, even when her eyes drifted from Pidge to Lance, on whose shoulder she briefly rested a hand. “I’m sorry no one else was here to see you awake,” she told Pidge, her eyes – still fixed on Lance – narrowed. “I told everyone they should sleep and you would be well when they woke, but obviously they didn’t all believe me.”

Lance laughed sheepishly and rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s not that I didn’t believe you, Allura,” he said.

“I know,” she agreed. “Anyway, do you need me to carry you to your bed?”

“I can—”

Pidge interrupted Lance, “I can walk fine now, but thank you.” She rolled her eyes at him, and he flushed.

Coran covered his mouth, suppressing a snort, and when Allura took her leave with all four mice, he followed her. “What do you think?” he asked her.

“About what?” Allura wondered, raising an eyebrow at him. After Coran nodded towards the pair they left behind, she replied, “I don’t know what to think, but I’m sure they do.”

Coran wasn’t sure he believed that, but he let Allura be optimistic, instead inquiring, “And what do you think of Sam Holt?”

Allura smiled, though there was something tremulous in it as she said, “I’ll think more when I speak properly to him in a few vargas.”

* * *

**(3)**

Hunk stared at the stack of pastries piled into the tray, wondering if it was worth serving them since there weren’t enough for everyone to have two…except there would’ve been if Matt and Sam Holt hadn’t decided to stay for dinner.

But he sighed and grabbed the tray and thought it unlikely _everyone_ would want seconds, despite the savory aroma rising up to greet his nostrils, vaguely reminiscent of the sorts of spices his mother used to cook with at home.

Hunk slid the tray onto the dining table, while behind him Keith, his helper for the meal, brought a few other items precariously balancing on his arms. Within a few tics, everyone filed into the dining room and took their usual seats:  Allura at the head with Shiro and Coran on either side of her, Matt sitting between Shiro and Pidge with Sam on her other side, and Keith and Hunk settled across the table from them on the same side as Coran, Lance seated between them.

This time dinner was more casual than usual without any diplomats or dignitaries to host, the only odd ones being Matt and Sam, who weren’t so much guests as honorary members of the team. They complimented Hunk’s cooking, and Matt teased everyone else, and when Lance complained why _Hunk_ wasn’t a target for his surprisingly merciless – though considering that Pidge was his sister, it really _shouldn’t_ have been a surprise – Matt joked, “I don’t have to worry about the rest of you poisoning my food if I offend them.”

Pidge snorted and said, “I’m sitting next to you, Matt. The tic you turn your head, my hand can slip over your drink.”

“Yeah, but you spent over a year looking for me,” Matt retorted, “so I know you wouldn’t waste that time by offing me.”

“Want to bet?” Pidge said, sticking her tongue out at him while Lance laughed. When she heard him, she spun around to eye him and demanded, “Whose side are you on?”

“Yours,” Lance reassured her quickly with a smile, a hand resting on her back.

She rolled her eyes, as if disbelievingly, but the corners of her mouth quirked up enough to indicate she fought a smile.

Then Matt flinched and eyed Hunk. “Did you just kick me?”

Hunk stared at him. “Uh, no?”

“Did _you_?” he asked Keith.

Keith, unbothered, tapped his spork against the side of his plate and said, “I don’t think so.”

Then Matt’s eyes fell on Lance and widened. “By process of elimination then, it must’ve been you.”

“Why wouldn’t you suspect Shiro?” Lance wondered, pointing his spork towards him.

“Because Shiro’s sitting next to me,” Matt pointed out. “You, on the other hand, are a prime candidate.”

Pidge cleared her throat and said, “Hey, Hunk, these meat pastry things are really good!”

Hunk glanced suspiciously at her as everyone else piped in with their compliments; was she…blushing? “Thanks,” he said.

“What’s in these?” Sam then asked. “It tastes quite a bit like beef with spices that come from Earth.”

“Kaltenecker,” Hunk deadpanned as he turned to regard Lance.

He gaped at him. “You wouldn’t,” he said.

Hunk raised an eyebrow at him. “Wouldn’t I?”

Pidge snorted and said, “You like milkshakes as much as the rest of us. Don’t worry, Lance, our cow is safe from him.”

Aha, and there it was. Hunk suppressed a jolt when a foot brushed against his own, but he smirked and said, “You’re right.”

“See?” Pidge said, brandishing her spork at him.

The rest of the meal passed without any other incidents, at least until the end after some of them had already filed out of the dining room. Only a single pastry remained, with two claimants for it.

Pidge and Lance each had a hand hovering over the tray, frowning and staring each other in the eye. “I only had one,” Lance said.

“So did I,” said Pidge.

“Well I’m bigger and need to eat more food than you.”

“I’m younger and might still grow.”

Hunk exchanged a glance with Matt, who’d offered to help him clean up after the meal. He shrugged but smiled a bit, apparently amused by the spectacle in front of him.

“I’ll play you for it,” Lance suggested with a smirk that flashed teeth.

Pidge narrowed her eyes. “As if you could win,” she retorted.

“I never said which game though.”

“Unless it’s something physical, I would still win.”

“How about a game of concentration then?”

“Staring contest?”

Hunk rested an annoyed hand against his forehead while Matt snickered behind him. “Isn’t that what you’ve _been_ doing?” Hunk asked.

“Yeah, but then it would be official,” said Lance without breaking eye contact with Pidge.

“Why don’t you just…cut it in half?” Hunk wondered. “It’s not like it’s a bite-sized pastry.”

Neither replied, either because they were silently considering his suggestion or because they had mutually decided to commence with their silly competition. But then Matt came around behind Pidge and snatched the pastry from the tray.

They both whipped around to stare at him. “Matt!” Pidge said, jumping up and lunging for him right as he took a bite.

“Still good even if it’s cooled, Hunk!” Matt said as if completely oblivious to Pidge’s efforts to wrestle the pastry from his hand.

Hunk smiled. “Thanks.”

* * *

**(2)**

Keith paced his bedroom, first one way and then the other. His thoughts raced, with worry for Shiro and with worry for Lance. At the moment he couldn’t do anything for Shiro – nestled as safely as could be inside a healing pod – but for Lance…

Without a second thought, he left his room and stalked down the hallway and towards his bedroom. And if he didn’t find Lance there, well, he would check the med bay afterwards.

But no one answered when Keith knocked on Lance’s door, and when he tried Pidge’s room – where Lance could be found more and more lately – no one responded there either. And except for a lone pod standing sentinel – the sight of which made Keith’s stomach turn and twist with anxiety – the med bay was empty.

On impulse, Keith turned to the Green Lion’s hangar. If Pidge wasn’t in her room, then she would be there, and maybe she would know where he could find Lance.

The sound of soft voices met Keith before the sight of two people quietly conversing next to Pidge’s desk, half-hidden by the massive shadow of the Green Lion. Their sides were angled towards the hangar entrance, the taller one slightly hunched over while the shorter faced him.

“… _not_ your fault, Lance,” Pidge was saying as Keith drew within earshot. She gripped Lance’s wrist tightly in one hand, an anchor securing him.

“I-I know,” Lance told her, but he reached up to rub his face. “It’s just like…Sven all over again, you know?”

“I…yeah, I can see that,” Pidge agreed, “but that wasn’t your fault either. Anyway, _you_ got him out of there and gave him a good chance for survival.”

“Maybe,” Lance said hesitantly, “but if he doesn’t wake up—”

“He will,” Pidge insisted. She wrapped her arms around Lance’s waist, pulling him closer to her, and seemed to relax against him when he brought his arms up to encircle her.

Keith took a careful step forward, unsure if he would be welcome into such a private-looking moment, and when Pidge caught sight of him, his movement drawing her eye, she shook her head very slightly.

But she smiled.

Keith nodded, understanding, and slowly withdrew.

* * *

When Shiro emerged from the healing pod halfway through the following day cycle, Keith caught him before he could fall. And when they hobbled out of the med bay and towards the kitchen, they encountered Lance right outside their destination.

“Thank you, Lance,” Shiro said, resting a firm hand on his shoulder while Keith clutched his other arm to keep him upright.

Lance half-glanced towards Pidge, who’d caught up to him, and she rolled her eyes and mouthed at him, “I told you so.”

* * *

**(1)**

The Coalition nominated Allura to accept the official surrender from the last holdout of the Galra Empire, almost an entire phoeb after vanquishing Zarkon himself. Lotor, Coran, and Shiro accompanied her, with Lotor ‘officially’ representing the remnants of the Empire, the pieces that would reassemble and recover as a republic, settling on a moon already referred to as New Daibazaal.

The Coalition itself wouldn’t dissolve, for which Allura was glad; since there were so few – but blessedly so _many_ – Alteans among the war’s survivors, they’d agreed to form a neutral diplomatic force for the good of the universe.

But sometime later, a problem arose as Voltron’s role in the new universal order was called into question.

“Voltron is basically a weapon of mass destruction,” Pidge argued. “Is it really a good idea to keep it intact?”

“Of course it is!” Keith retorted. “We need it just in case some other would-be dictator tries to follow in Zarkon’s footsteps.”

“But who are _we_ to decide who’s right and wrong now?” Pidge asked, quite pragmatically in Allura’s reluctant opinion. “Earth may have had first contact now, but they’re so far behind compared to most of the other active members of the Coalition.”

“ _They_?” Lance noted, raising an eyebrow at her.

“I mean, _we_ ,” Pidge said, though she looked uncertain about that. “But I’m only really arguing as a Paladin of Voltron now, not someone from Earth.” She crossed her arms, staring around at the rest of them assembled, silently asking them to comment on her thoughts. “I just…don’t think Voltron has any place in the universe anymore.”

“Are you saying _we_ should disband too?” Hunk said.

“Not really,” Pidge reassured him quickly. “I think we should…split the Lions.” She glanced at Allura. “Again, though I guess it’s really up to you, Princess.”

Allura tapped her fingers on the table’s surface, considering Pidge’s words and trying to push her reflexive emotions – which encouraged her to contradict Pidge, to declare Voltron and the Lions’ unity absolutely essential to peace in the universe – aside. “I…don’t know,” she said. “You may have a point, Pidge, but I think we need to wait a while, and consider it. I’m not sure we’re as much at peace as we’d like to be.”

Pidge glanced at Lance, who shrugged at her, but then she met Allura’s eyes and nodded.

* * *

“You…really think we should disband, Pidge?”

Allura paused just outside the lounge’s door at the sound of Lance’s voice; when Chulatt, who accompanied her at the moment, glanced up at her with a question in its eyes, she put a finger to her lips and pointed at the door.

“Yes,” Pidge said quickly, abruptly. “Voltron is just ridiculously powerful and I don’t think anyone should keep all that power to himself. Wasn’t that one of the things we tried to keep Zarkon from doing?”

“Well, yeah, but—”

“So shouldn’t we make sure nothing _else_ like that happens again?”

“Yeah,” Lance agreed, “but that’s why Voltron has more than one Paladin.”

“I know that,” Pidge said, “but _all of us_ are from the same planet. _That_ isn’t fair either!”

Silence, sudden and deep enough Allura held her breath and pressed her ear to the door.

“Are you saying the Lions have to find new Paladins?” Lance asked, voice quiet.

“I don’t know what I’m saying, Lance,” Pidge said, just as softly, and perhaps a little sadly too. “It’s not even really my decision. It’s Allura’s, and the Lions’.”

“Yeah, but, Pidge…”

“I know you love being a Paladin,” Pidge said. Allura could imagine her embracing him, like they often did even around others. “I-I do too, and after all this I don’t think I could go back to Earth and _stay_ there, but it’s all about what’s best for the universe, isn’t it?”

Allura frowned at Chulatt at the tone in Pidge’s voice, at the sound of her begging for reassurance that she was doing – or was encouraging – the right thing. Her own heart squeezed at the thought of disbanding her Paladins; aliens though they were, they’d become her family as surely as they’d become each other’s.

“Yeah, it is,” Lance agreed after another long beat of silence. “I guess I just…don’t know what’s best for the universe anymore, and if it’s also what’s best for us.”

 _Oh._ Something like understanding settled into Allura, and she wiped at the unexpected tears that streamed down her face. Unlike her, the Paladins had something to return _to_ ; they’d been drawn into this war against their will, and though they’d chosen to stay… She couldn’t expect them to stay now that the threat was gone.

To Chulatt – to all four mice – she said, _They’re not talking about Voltron anymore, are they?_

Chulatt turned its face to look at her; it chittered and rubbed its face, communicating its own distress, a reflection of hers. Allura stroked its head as she retreated to her own bedroom to meditate on her decision.

Later when they assembled again, she agreed that Pidge was right and that separating all five Lions was for the best. Though they all differed in reaction – Pidge satisfied if not pleased, Shiro, Hunk, and Lance all acceptant if conflicted, Keith visibly annoyed – only Keith argued, and even he came around eventually.

A few quintants later, Voltron officially disbanded, the Lions scattered to different corners of the universe – the Black Lion alone remaining in its hangar in the Castle. Each Paladin made their decisions as well.

“I think I could use a long vacation to Earth,” Lance said before he left with the Blue Lion when Allura dropped in to see him. “Hunk will come with me, and after that…” He shrugged, smiling wryly.

“I’m sorry,” Allura said, clasping her hands and fixing her gaze on the floor. “I know this isn’t what any of you want, even if you all agree.”

“It’s okay,” Lance said. “You and Pidge were right, and I’m sure we’ll see each other again?” He posed it as a question, but Allura found herself nodding and smiling hopefully.

“I’m sure,” she said.

They saw Lance and Hunk off the following ‘morning’, and Allura said her own goodbyes to the Blue Lion, resting a hand on her huge paw and feeling the old, familiar tug on their bond, a feeling somehow both full of warmth and soothingly cool at the same time. She watched the Paladins say their goodbyes, both Hunk and Coran openly crying as they hugged each other and everyone else.

“No suicide missions while I’m gone,” Lance told Keith when they hugged.

“Shut up,” Keith grumbled, but Allura could tell by his smile that he was grudgingly amused.

Then Pidge tugged Lance into a firm hug, muttering something to him that Allura was too far to hear, but she spotted the beginning of tears on both of their faces. Louder, Pidge said, “Can you…check on my dad every once in a while, please?”

“Anything you want, Pidge,” Lance reassured her. Briefly, he rested his forehead against hers in a gesture that seemed so intimate that everyone reflexively averted their eyes.

But Allura still heard Pidge quietly say, “Just come back.”

“Don’t be strangers,” Shiro then teased, disrupting the moment to clap Lance and Hunk on the shoulders.

“Thanks, Shiro,” Hunk said, smiling. “For everything.”

“Yeah, thanks.”

The two of them approached Allura next. Hunk enveloped her in a warm hug, and she allowed herself to sag into him. “I will miss your cooking,” she admitted with a smile.

“More than you’ll miss me?” Hunk wondered.

Allura patted his cheek. “Of course not!” Then she turned to Lance. “Take care of my Lion.”

“She’s my Lion too,” Lance retorted, his hand joining hers on the Blue Lion’s paw.

Allura smiled a little wider. “Yes, but I’ll miss both of you.”

“Take care of yourself, Princess,” Lance told her, throwing up a mocking salute. “And…look after Pidge too.”

“For you and for her,” Allura agreed.

She watched them board, the Castle’s remaining passengers filing in on either side of her, including the mice. Plachu perched on Pidge’s head, its paws buried in her hair, while the Blue Lion shot out of the hangar, the Yellow Lion joining her a few tics later. They would take Yellow to its own hiding spot first before returning to Earth in Blue.

Everyone watched the Lions until they were less than colored specks mingling with the stars, but when they dispersed, only Allura, Pidge, and the mice lingered.

“They’ll come back, won’t they?” Pidge asked her.

Allura shot her a glance, and when their eyes met she smiled reassuringly. “I believe they will,” she said. “The universe may very well need Voltron and its Paladins again.”

* * *

**(0)**

Lance’s consciousness chases the remnants of a dream when his eyes open to the inside of his childhood bedroom, the same movie posters plastered to the wall that he first taped on in his preteen years. But if he closes his eyes again he can see the beachside cave where he hid the Blue Lion, can still remember him and Hunk leaving their Paladin armor behind in her cockpit before they escaped and hailed the Coast Guard.

His second time returning to Earth after leaving – disappearing and presumed dead after years away – was much quieter than the first, with fewer tears shed on his family’s part, but it’s now a year since then, and Lance finds himself growing restless, desperate to escape the Earth’s gravity again.

Lance rolls out of bed and stands up, opening his window to let in a rare, cool breeze free of humidity. He taps his fingers against the sill, listening to the sounds of dogs barking and the wind passing through the trees, simple noises that he missed while in space but that are now just as mundane as before he left for the Garrison.

He closes his eyes again, and the deep growl of a large predator fills his mind, louder than the dogs outside. “I hear you, Blue,” he says. “It’s time, isn’t it?”

This isn’t the first time he’s heard the Blue Lion since returning to Earth, but it’s the first time she’s contacted him with a sense of urgency, the kind that makes Lance’s heartbeat quicken, a familiar worry for his friends still in space taking over.

He tightens his grip on the windowsill and thinks of Pidge, wonders what she’s doing and if she’s safe, if she’s bored and tired or if she still finds things to love and marvel at in any of the systems she visits.

Lance wonders if Pidge misses him as much as he misses her.

It’s been almost a month since he last spoke to her father, like he promised to do; they have a working relationship of sorts now, since Lance is technically an employee of the Galaxy Garrison despite everything. He was even invited to speak at the cadets’ graduation at the end of spring a few months ago, a place he _never_ expected to be, something Shiro did before the Kerberos mission, before Lance knew him as anything other than his hero.

“Why am I still here?” Lance asks Blue, and himself. _I didn’t mean to stay this long._

He dresses in jeans and a t-shirt, something he doesn’t mind getting dirty, and goes downstairs into the living room, where his mother sits reading a book. “ _Mami_ ,” he says to get her attention.

She turns towards him, smiling in greeting. “Morning, Lance!” she says brightly as he rounds the sofa and leans down to kiss her cheek. “Are you going somewhere today?”

“Yeah,” Lance says. “I’m…leaving.”

His mother stares up at him uncomprehending, but then her smile falters, and understanding fills her eyes. “Oh,” she says. “ _Oh_.”

“ _Mami_ —”

“You were gone for so long,” his mother says, averting her eyes.

“I know.” Lance sits next to her and takes her hand. “I’ll still visit sometimes, if I can.”

“Visiting is something you do when you leave home.”

“Yes, but at least I’m not disappearing without a word this time, right?”

To his surprise, she chuckles. “Yes, I guess that’s true,” she says, affirming it with a nod.

She hugs him tightly before he leaves, and by then his father’s come home too and heard the news. He leaves with a promise that he _will_ come back and calls Hunk once he’s in his car and driving to the airport, hoping he can use his Garrison identification to secure a seat on a flight for the mainland without much difficulty.

“Hey, buddy,” Lance says, grinning into his phone. “You think it’s time to go back yet?”

* * *

Lance and Hunk agree to meet at the small beachside town some fifty miles down the coast from the Blue Lion’s hiding place, but he first takes a flight to Chicago and rides a taxi out of the city and into a suburb about a half hour south.

After asking the driver to wait for him, Lance opens the door and heads up the walkway to a small house with a well-tended front yard, small apple trees heavy with nearly ripened fruit and a grape vine climbing a trellis. Birds chirp as Lance walks by, flying away when they’re startled by his movement.

He rings the doorbell and waits.

The door opens, and Sam Holt himself admits him with a smile. “Lance,” he says cheerfully. “If you were in town, you could’ve called and we would’ve—”

“Oh, this won’t take long, sir,” Lance says. “I, uh, I’m heading back.”

Sam takes his meaning immediately. “I see. In that case, tell my children I’m still waiting for them to pay me a visit; I’m getting old and won’t live forever.”

Lance raises an eyebrow at him. “Do you want to tell them that yourself?”

Sam stares at him and deadpans, “Son, I’m retired.”

He bites back a laugh and says, “Okay, well, I doubt they’ll be convinced since you survived Galra captivity. Also, you’re younger than _my_ dad.”

Sam pats his shoulder and grins. “I know, but I can still afford to guilt them into seeing me. And their mother misses them too.”

“I’ll be sure to mention that to Pidge and Matt when I see them. Anything else I can tell them?”

He shakes his head. “Just tell Katie to be careful she doesn’t burn herself out; and…a bit of advice for you, Lance.”

“I…what?” Taken aback, Lance stares at him.

“Tell her,” Sam says.

“Tell her…what?”

Sam rolls his eyes – an odd gesture for someone his age, but not so much considering he’s Pidge’s father – and tells him, “You know, and you don’t need me to tell you. Have a safe travel.”

“Th-thanks,” Lance stutters as Sam retreats into his house, leaving him to ponder over words that probably aren’t as cryptic as they need to be.

* * *

“How did your parents take it?” Hunk asks him as he drives them up the coast towards the cave.

“About as well as you’d expect,” Lance says, shrugging. He stares out the passenger window towards the ocean, visible from the road they drive along. “They made me promise to visit them.”

“Mine too,” Hunk says. He’s frowning when Lance glances at him, and adds, “Man, I never expected to miss it as much as I do.”

“Space?” Lance inquires.

“Yeah,” he says. “It’s weird, since I barely even wanted to go in the first place.”

 _Can I do that from the ground?_ Hunk asked when they found out he was the engineer to Lance’s fighter pilot. How things had changed.

“I miss everyone too, of course,” Hunk adds. “ _And_ my Lion. I’m not gonna lie, Lance; I’m actually kind of jealous of you.”

Lance raises an eyebrow at him. “Because I can hear my Lion and you can’t?”

“Yeah,” Hunk says, nodding. He smiles. “I can’t wait to see everyone again.”

Lance hums his agreement, looking out the window again. “You think Keith’s hair looks the same?”

Hunk snorts. “You think Coran’s mustache does?”

“Maybe he has a goatee now to match?” Lance suggests, looking once more at Hunk.

They burst into laughter, hard enough to bring tears to Lance’s eyes. He wipes them away, but he sobers enough to ask, “What if _they_ don’t miss us?”

“Why wouldn’t they?” Hunk wonders. When Lance doesn’t respond immediately, his eyes narrow in suspicion and he says, “This is about Pidge, isn’t it?”

Lance squirms, unable and unwilling to deny it.

Hunk sighs and says, “Lance, you have nothing to worry about.”

“But—”

“Pidge was as head over heels for you as you were for her,” he says. “Do you _really_ think she _wouldn’t_ miss you?”

Lance twiddles his thumbs. “It’s been a whole year.”

“Well, you didn’t exactly break up—”

“Might as well have,” he mumbles uncomfortably.

“—and I’m ninety-nine percent sure she’s at least had a crush on you since the Garrison—”

“Quiznak, _that long_?” Lance spins his head around to stare at him, stunned.

Hunk rolls his eyes. “Honestly, I thought you’d be flattered, or that you would’ve picked up on it _before_ now.”

“I…I did,” Lance admits. His gaze drifts back outside to watch the sky change colors as the sun sets, the waves going from a lighter blue to a deeper one. “The timing just never seemed right to…do something about it.”

“I can understand that,” Hunk concedes. “We were in the middle of a war, and even if I always suspected Allura and Shiro had a little something going on—”

“They _did_?”

Hunk ignores him and plows on, “—you and Pidge were always a bit different.”

“Different _how_?” Lance demands, unsure if he should be offended or not.

Hunk drums his fingers on the steering wheel. “Pidge was so focused on something else, and you spent a lot of time with your head stuck up your own ass.”

“That’s…that’s kind of rough of you to say, Hunk,” Lance grumbles, crossing his arms. But even he can admit that Hunk has a point.

“Hey, somehow Pidge saw through that and that you’re actually a good guy.”

“I still think _you’re_ being a little harsh,” Lance retorts irritably.

“Yeah, maybe a little,” Hunk agrees. “Memory is kind of funny like that, right?”

“Right,” Lance says, laughing. Quiznak, he’s even missed Hunk, who was always just a phone call away but still so distant.

Maybe because being in Hunk’s company brought back into sharp relief how much Lance missed the rest of his team – his _other_ family, in a sense – and Pidge in particular.

Even though their legend was over ten thousand years in the making, for Lance it always starts with him, Hunk, and Pidge on a roof at the Garrison, after sneaking out past curfew and watching an alien spaceship fall from the sky.

Hunk parks the car about a mile from the Blue Lion, leaving the keys inside, and Lance sticks a note under the windshield wipers with a request for whoever bothers to investigate it to return it to the rental center. Then they hike down the cliff to the narrow strip of rocky beach, the warm water soaking into their shoes and socks.

“Well,” Lance says while they walk, “ _this_ I will also miss, again. There’s just no beach in the universe that can compare to any on Earth.”

“Yeah,” Hunk agrees with a wistful sigh. He points his flashlight ahead of them, leading the way to Blue.

She greets him as soon as he steps into the cave, her eyes flashing yellow. Lance grins, her presence washing over him more strongly than it has in the last year. “Miss me?” he asks her.

In response, the Blue Lion drops her particle barrier and lowers her jaw, allowing him and Hunk to climb in. Lance takes his achingly familiar place in the pilot’s chair, muscle memory guiding his hands to the controls.

He whoops, a gleeful warmth filling his chest as the Blue Lion shoots out of the cave’s entrance and into the air, up, up, up and away towards a dark blanket spotted with stars. Hunk, in an odd contrast to the last time this happened, laughs, but he still holds tightly to the back of Lance’s seat, yelling in indignation – and perhaps a tiny bit of terror – when he guides Blue into an unnecessary spin.

They escape Earth’s atmosphere within a few short moments, leaving the blue planet that was their home – and still is, in a way – behind. Blue knows where to go better than he does from there, and when they reach the edge of their solar system, past Pluto’s orbit, a wormhole opens ahead of them.

With an eerie sense of déjà vu, Lance declares, “We’re going home.”

When they emerge on the other side of the wormhole, the familiar sight of the ridged planet Olkarion greets them. “So the Castle’s there now, is it?” he wonders aloud.

Blue confirms with a growl, and Hunk asks, “Why couldn’t we pick up my Lion first?”

“Because Blue wants to go home,” Lance says. _And so do I._

They enter Olkarion’s atmosphere and descend towards the planet’s surface, Blue decelerating as they approach. She lands softly outside the city, and Hunk quips, “I think that was your best landing yet.”

“Thanks, buddy,” Lance says with a grin.

“Yeah, for once, I don’t want to throw up.”

Lance scowls at him, but Hunk laughs and pats him on the back as he contacts the Castle with the Lion’s communication system. His heart beats in anticipation while he waits for someone to accept his call, hoping and dreading it will be Pidge; though he desperately wants to see her, he wants their reunion to be face to face.

Relief and disappointment mingle within him when Coran’s mustached face appears on the viewscreen, but then Lance’s face splits into a wide grin. “Coran!” he says. “It’s been a while, huh?”

“Oh, Number Three!” Coran exclaims with a smile of his own. “Welcome back! We were wondering when you would show your face again!”

“I’m glad to be back,” he says. “Can I bring Blue into her hangar?”

“Yes, of course,” says Coran.

Blue shoots towards the city at the admission without prompting, and Lance barely catches a glimpse of the Castle standing sentinel on a hill just on the other side when they’re landing inside the familiar hangar. Blue growls with contentment as her paws land on the floor, and after patting her console in gratitude, Lance and Hunk disembark.

His heart stops when he sees who’s there to greet them.

Pidge smiles, and though there’s something hesitant in it, it disappears when she hugs Hunk.

(Lance tries not to be jealous that she’s greeting Hunk first.)

“Oh, I missed you so much!” she says, practically squealing as Hunk lifts her off the floor.

“Oh, me too, me too!” Hunk says. He sets her on her feet, hands on her shoulders, and squints. “Did you get taller?”

Pidge snorts. “No, I think you just remember me being shorter than I am,” she says. “Keith said the same thing when he came back from New Daibazaal a while ago.”

“Keith’s here too?” Hunk asks with a grin.

“Yeah, and Shiro.” Pidge shrugs nonchalantly. “You’re the last ones here, except…” She narrows her eyes at Hunk. “I’m sure one of them would be happy to take you to the Balmera so you can pick up your Lion too.”

“Oh, great!” Hunk says, voice full of glee as he takes his leave of them and sprints out of the hangar.

Then Pidge turns to Lance, her smile widening just a bit, but there’s something anxious in it. Her anxiety is reflected in Lance, in his rapid heartbeat and warm face. For once he’s at a loss for words, even though he’s daydreamed what he can say to her when they reunite many times in the year they’ve been apart.

 _I missed you_ feels too weak, and _I love you_ is too much, too soon.

“H-how’s my dad?” Pidge asks.

Lance smiles, and isn’t disappointed; it wouldn’t be her if she didn’t ask about her family. “He’s good,” he says. “Says he’s retired.”

Pidge snorts. “He probably still works for the Garrison from home,” she claims.

Lance agrees, “Yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“What about you?” she wonders, brow furrowing with unneeded concern. “How are you?”

“Good, now that I’m here,” Lance says.

Pidge smiles wryly and shakes your head. “You won’t think so once Allura debriefs you,” she tells him.

“Yeah, well…” Lance spreads his arms, just enough to be a subtle invitation.

Pidge accepts immediately, wrapping her arms around his waist and pressing the side of her head to his chest. “I missed you,” she says quietly. “I missed you so much.”

“M-me too,” Lance says. He strokes her soft hair – it’s short again, shorter than it was last time he saw her – and rests his chin on the top of her head. She fits so perfectly into his arms, her body warm and familiar against his.

“Don’t stay away so long again,” Pidge says.

“I won’t,” Lance promises.

“Good.” She pulls away from him, just enough she can look up and into his eyes. “Because if you do, I’m coming after you.”

“Why not just cut the time in half and come _with_ me?” Lance suggests, raising an eyebrow at her.

Pidge snorts and says, “I forgot how annoying you can be.”

“Ha, and yet you still love me.”

Pidge’s eyes widen, just slightly, at the words that slip out of Lance’s mouth almost without his permission, but then she smiles and says, “Yeah, I love you.”

“I love you t—”

Pidge silences him by tugging him down by the collar of his shirt and pressing her lips to his. Lance happily kisses her back, and she smiles against his mouth when he cups her face, searching for a better angle. Her arms wrap around his neck, tugging him closer, and when they part to catch their breaths, she runs her fingers through his hair.

“I’ve wanted to do that for a while,” she admits. Her other hand comes up to rest on his cheek, her palm warm and just a bit damp.

“Me too,” Lance says. “Do you think we waited too long?”

Pidge shrugs and says, “Better late than never, right?”

“Right,” Lance agrees.

Before they can kiss again – or speak more – rapid footsteps interrupt them, and Lance feels a rapid flash of annoyance. But they both turn, without parting, towards the hangar entrance as Allura approaches with a wide smile on her face.

“Lance!” she says brightly. “I’m so glad to see you and Hunk again…and the Blue Lion!” Her eyes spark as they fall on her, but she returns her gaze to Lance quickly.

Pidge coughs, apparently uncomfortable in someone else’s presence, but to his relief she doesn’t pull away from him. “Hi Princess,” she says. Then, with a sigh, she adds, “I guess you’ll want to debrief him now.”

Allura’s cheer fades and she admits, “Yes. I’m afraid the universe already has need of Voltron again.”

**Author's Note:**

> i have a bad habit of asking questions (whether about Real Life or about fictional things) and then not seeing them through or explaining them well so anyway this is why this fic got weirdly speculative at the end, but it also scratches my itch/general frustration with what happens 'after' in a lot of stories that involve taking down some Big Bad Dictator...like in how the characters pick up the pieces once they stop celebrating
> 
> anyway i am on [tumblr](https://sp4c3-0ddity.tumblr.com/) so come say hi!!


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